The Return of What Film Have You Watched Recently

[Sebastos]

The Karate Kid (2010)

Wasn't a bad retelling of the 80's classic.

[Phil Clark]

I just watched Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Not bad. A good popcorn flick, and a nice precursor to the CG generated backgrounds and effects of films to follow.

[Simbob4000]

Watched The Piano Teacher, really good movie. Only Michael Haneke movie I've seen that I really like, only other movies I've seen of his are Funny Games & The White Ribbon.

Also watched I Saw the Devil again, that movie, along with Iron Monkey are the best Batman movies ever made...they just so happen to not have Batman in them.

[Deathstroke]

I went to see One For the Money today.

It was fine as a one time viewing but I was rather disappointed in it overall.

[Karl O'Neill]

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by David Fincher.

It's really good.

[Karl O'Neill]

SH II.


I really liked it. It's more of the same as the first movie; the balance between high octane action (I am at a loss to why they needed to show us empty bullet cartridges being deposited from machine guns in slow motion) and mystery and intrigue wasn't perfect, but I digress, Guy Richie is not above and beyond the conventions of Hollywood storytelling and pleasing an audience with ready dollars.

There was some nice nods to Conan Doyle's literary endeavours (Watson as our trusted narrator, The Study In Scarlet references, and Moriarty being referred to as "The Napoleon Of Crime"). As a side note, if you haven't already sampled the Sherlock Holmes stories, start with A Study In Scarlet, it's one of the best).

Guy Richie's dialogue is as snappy and fresh as ever. Easily one of his stronger points as a script writer and his second Holmes movie is just as humorous as the first. There are some good lines in the movie to match the best of the funny ones.

Consider this line which sums up Holmes uncanny abilities and the burden they put on him.

Madame Simza Heron: "What do you see?".
Sherlock Holmes: "Everything..., that is my curse".

Moriarty was portrayed by Jared Harris from the TV show Mad Men. Harris is strong and memorable as Moriarty (He lectures by day, and tries to take over the world by night) and I loved the subtle touches in his facial movements and speech patterns. I wouldn't say Oscar material, but if you asked me who stole the show between Law, Downey Jr and Harris, I couldn't settle on a choice.

Oh, and they played the trailer for Man On A Ledge again. Urrg, I get it Hollywood, you accept shit, we will give you more SHIT!

;-)

[Castel]

The Nines.

Surprisingly good.

[GrifterWC]

Dark Metropolis (2010) - When mankind creates a genetically perfect clone (immune from sickness) and use them to fight their wars and build their cities, they (The Gens) revolt and create an underground civilization where the young new leader preaches that humans need to be destroyed.
Interesting idea but this movie's script, story and acting fails every step of the way.

Survival Island (2006) - (Billy Zane and Kelly Brook) are one of two married couples that rent a yaht while on vacation. The yaht catches fire and the couples and crew abandon ship. Kelly Brook awakens on a deserted island with only the crewman from the yaht.
An okay movie, Billy Zane did well with what he was given and Kelly Brook is hot.

Slaughtered (2010) - In a rural Australian bar a mask wearing killer begins chopping up the employee's and customers.
I was really hoping this would have been half decent, but it's not even that. The movies a mess story wise. Acting was bad. I know it's a low budget movie but this was bad even for that.

[dupersuper]

Survival Island (2006) - Two married couples (Billy Zane and Kelly Brook)

Duel roles?

[doolbnoom]

TCM
"Bright Leaf" (1950) B+W
Gary Cooper, Lauren Bacall, Patricia Neal, Jack Carson
Dir- Michael Curtiz

Backed by a rich madam, a Southerner ruins a tobacco tycoon w a cigarette-making machine.

the story is a bit more involved, and this is one of the best movies either Cooper or Bacall made. superb in every way. gets a 10 out of 10 from me. i HIGHLY recommend this!

"200 Cigarettes"- New Year's Eve 1981- romance. pretty good!

MEMORY OF A KILLER - (BELGIUM?) GREAT MOVIE! SEE IT!

WAR HORSE- loved it!

BURIED- indy film starring ryan reynolds- damn good flick...

Born to be Bad (1950)
Joan Fontaine, Joan Leslie, Robt. Ryan, Zachary Scott- 9 out of 10

click- good comedy/drama

the losers- decent action flick, never read the comic

tank girl- now i have to read the comic!

[Drz]

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - Blu-ray Review

It’s funny but the Blu-ray became available for purchase on Play.com faster than its hitting theaters in my home country hah. So instead of seeing this in a cinema experience it came down to watching this on my room and watching all the special features & commentary.


The movie is based off the 1974 novel of the same name by John Le Carré. Set in London 1973-1974 the story flows of the British Intelligence known as the Circus (MI6), as a Soviet Union mole is suspected among their amidst.


The movie is a very slow and silent espionage spy thriller. It’s pretty much a battle of wits and human emotion between 7 people and it’s filled with paranoia. Is there a mole? Who is the mole? How long has he or she been working? Who can you truly trust?


The protagonist of the movie is George Smiley played by Gary Oldman. He’s old, experienced, calm, thoughtful and the ultimately planner here, but quite frankly also the ultimate paranoid more or less in the story. The whole movie is played by a variety of talent with Benedict Cumberbatch playing Peter Guillman. Colin Firth as Bill Haydon, Tom Hardy as Ricki Tarr, David Dencik as Toby Esterhase, Toby Jones as Percy Alleline. You also have Mark Strong & John Hurt playing minor supporting characters. Incredibly well casted assembly with Tomas Alfredson as the director.
I won’t speak more of the plot as that would go more into detail, but the basic premise is that this is 1974 British intelligence trying to figure out who truly could be the Soviet Union mole and what is the big game picture here. It’s a silent, slow burned movie that deals with Agents having to go to against each other despite having been loyal partners for around 2 decades and more. It’s very subtle and emotional. I’d like to add that the setting is incredible well done, from clothing, atmosphere, to the hardware people used back then to their mannerism. The production value was incredibly detailed to say the very least. Cinematography was a bit overdone however, like I mentioned the movie is slow, I do feel it had some rather pointless scenes that truly didn’t add anything to the movie.


Blu-ray Extras:


The Blu-ray is filled with extras. However a lot of it is simple interviews of the writer, director and actors giving their insight on the movie, the book it’s adapting, how familiar we’re they with the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy and so forth. There are some good thoughts shared there, but at the end of the day this isn’t anything new and comes off as a rather norm feature in dvd/blu-ray.


Deleted scenes are also included and I’m thankful they’re deleted, because they add nothing to the overall story and movie already has scenes that show the exact same portrayal of these characters, so yeah good thing these didn’t drag the movie along, even though it’s just 5 minutes of deleted scenes.


There are also audio book samples, which I think is rather nice as each chapter is like one hour long, but at the end of the day who wants to leave their television open and listen to someone talk for an hour? The point of a television is to see moving picture. I guess they couldn’t get any episodes of the old television series for copyright reasons or other reasoning, but I would have found that more suitable then this.


I think the coolest special feature was a 30 minute interview with John Le Carré who wrote the novel, getting his insight and how his real life inspired the novel and he gets really deep into how his life effected this book, really getting down to the mannerism of the MI6 agents of the 70s. He even talks about how he felt Smiley was a character he felt was the father he never had and his own social awkwardness. Really its incredible how much he talks about his own life and even how World War 2 effected and molded him as a person. It’s too much to simply summarize.
Now for the biggest treat (for me at least) is re-watching this movie with the commentary of Gary Oldman & Tomas Alfredson! I’m a big fan of commentaries so there is obvious bias here, but re-watching the movie, knowing how the story unfolds but with the added emotional drama between the agents at each other’s throats with Tomas and Gary giving insight, debating, pondering and joking about the context just makes it much more fun to watch. They talk about how they adapted the scenes, what we’re cut, point out important little details that my eye didn’t notice the 1st time I viewed and so forth. Very pleasant to watch and listen.


Conclusion:


Pretty decent movie, I’d say what makes it unique amongst other spy thrillers is the slow, silent, paranoid filled run it had, with decent extras and a digital copy + DvD included, I felt the it was a well worth purchase. Recommending this movie for fans of: spy genres, cold wars. and the actor Gary Oldman.

[Mormel]

Two Indonesian films, 'Parts Of The Heart' by Paul Agusta and 'Mata Tertutup' ('eyes closed', English title: 'The Blindfold') by Garin Nugroho, starring Eka Nusa Pertiwi, Dinu Imansyah, and Jajang Noer.

Was very pleasantly surprised by both films. 'Parts Of The Heart' follows the story of a young man in Jakarta's gay scene, and 'Blindfold' is about youngsters being recruited by the fundamentalist movement Negara Islam Indonesia. Both movies were multi-faceted, well-directed, great performances by the actors involved, and they left me a very happy viewer. I caught them at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam. I also finally got to see a bit more of Rotterdam, it's not an ugly town. And I say this as an Amsterdammer.

[Global Honored]

FACTOTUM

Matt Dillon is terrific. I like this a little better than the Mickey Rourke '80s take "Barfly" but still only recommended to Chinaski...er...I mean Charles Bukowski fans. More emphasis on the booze in this take but Dillon and the cast (Marisa Tomei, Lily Taylor) make it work and stay relatively on point. Grab a bottle, a smoke and enjoy.

[GrifterWC]

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) - Man's hope to cure alzheimers becomes the key to Caesar's intelligence and rise of the ape revolution.
The CGI for the ape's especially their eyes was great. Overall an interesting and entertaining movie. Looking forward to a sequel.

Apollo 18 (2011) - Footage from the secret mission to the Moon is uncovered. Enjoyed the film for what it was.

[Drz]

the Descendants review

It has been a great pleasure to watch 2 really good George Clooney movies in such a short time. 1st the movie he co-starred, directed and co-wrote the Ides of March, now a family comedy-drama directed by Alexander Payne.

The movie deals about a family dealing with the Mother Elizabeth going into comatose and the inevitable death she is going to face, the family’s man/father is Matt King (played by George Clooney) and the protagonist of the film, but the way the film is played and the spotlight given, I’d say the father and his two daughters are protagonist all together. 10-year Old Scottie (Amara Miller) and 17-year Old Alex (Shailene Woodley) are the daughters, Scottie being an artistic adventurous foul mouth kiddo with Alex being the drunken pot smoker who has a thing for older men. Matt has always been the back-up parent and now he has to deal with trying to raise them all by himself.

Now what intervenes and molds part of the main plot with the family having to deal with Elizabeth’s death is also that she cheated behind Matt’s back and Matt feels he must see this cheater and learn why Elizabeth would be a backstabber to her husband and children. So Matt has to deal with this, his daughters and informing about Elizabeth’s ensured death and her inevitable funeral to their loved ones. This is Matt King’s personal hell on the paradise Hawaii.

“My friends think that just because we live in Hawaii, we live in paradise. We’re all just out here sipping Mai Tai’s, shaking our hips and catching waves. Are they insane? Do they think we’re immune to life? How can they possibly think our families are less screwed up? Our heartaches, less painful?” is a quote that actually opens the movie, but it’s the perfect way for me to talk about the other star of the movie: Hawaii itself. Just like what Peter Jackson did to New Zealand with his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Alexander Payne manages to show how utterly beautiful Hawaii can be, but at the same time showing how much the same it is, how dirty it can be and how dark and grey if the peoples’ moods are down. I really liked the quote and I paid a lot of attention to the scenery and greatly enjoyed how much of Hawaii I got to see. The film is also filled with Hawaiian music, which I felt was a good choice to add up for the sceneries.

What I really loved about the movie was that it had really unique and different characters, the supporting characters we’re good, and all the main characters and their supporting characters got developed during the course of the movie and life went on. They all learn something from this experience and come off as smarter and better people with new values, it uplifts them and it uplifts the audience. I just really loved how George Clooney gets to do these incredibly serious movies with 10 year old daughters swearing, family crises and dealing with serious subjects like death in a family.

So without a further doubt, I warmly recommend this movie to everyone. It’s really good.